That Old Gang of Mine

Professional actress, professional musician, professional director...professional mommy, in some ways...and yet the thing I have been pining for the most in recent weeks/months is singing with my old Sweet Adelines chorus. Yep, snort/smirk/laugh/guffaw if you want to. It was just a little something that helped fill in the performance withdrawal and fit in with the mommy track, right? It's not like I don't do REAL theatre, and REAL music and REAL performing. Oh, there are a few very, very lucky women (and even fewer men, but I'm not counting those...c'mon!) who get to actually make a 'living' within the organization. For the most part, however, it's a bunch of girls who are above average in the musicality department (not all choruses, mind you, just the bunch I used to hang with and their compatriots), living for rehearsals and shows (and sequins and really heavy make up) who live their lives as managers, nurses, homemakers, shopkeepers, teachers, etc. So why is it I miss the barbershop more than I miss any of my other performance venues?

For one, it's the challenge of the music. For me, getting up on stage for a two hour performance of [insert any musical name here] ain't nothing. (Well, actually, it's something and I take it very seriously and I'm very good at it.) But there's something about a group full of like-minded and sometimes like-lifed women who get together and don't have to explain why they like being there, why they're fanatical to the point of obsession, why the words 'more rhinestones' is akin to "Scotty, I need more power NOW!"

I miss my old choir. I sang with them for no longer than six months but in that time they came to have an impact on my life that I have not been able to replace or even come close to recreating. I still read the posts on the blog. I read my weekly newsletter (even though I'm no longer officially a member, God bless 'em). I log on to the Sweet Addies international site almost every day looking for them to freakin' update the audio/video - it's a new year, people, get the new contest winners up already!!! I look for vids on youtube. I visit other choruses websites and think "You're costumes aren't as good as ours" or some other snippy remark.

I still have plans that only can run in my mind through this chorus. I rewrite words to published barbershop songs just because I can. (and they're funny, don't forget funny) I have a short list of possible quartet names. I have plotted a course to become international faculty and get my own frickin' crown (you gotta be in a quartet for that, folks). I even have scripted four or five shows that no one wants to know about. Folks, I am a hobby looking for a person, not the other way around!

I miss the personalities. The outgoing Brenderr, encouraging Marina, soul-sista Kristen, energetic Sarah, wry Anne and knowing Ann, comradely Laura and knee-slapping funny Deb...every week I opened the most personal and bestest part of myself to people I really, really liked and they took one look at me and said "Come sit by me, you're one of us." I didn't have to explain why my eyes misted sometimes when I sang beautiful harmony with three other parts. I didn't have to justify why good music in any form is so important to the wholeness of me. I never had to say "Not tonight, girls, I have a headache" or "for cryin' out loud will you just give me my space" or "Do these sequins make my ass look huge?" Actually, no Sweet Addie in her right mind puts the sequins on her ass. They're on her bust, where they'll do the most good. Her ass is too crammed into an underall to do much of anything. Which is the point, really.

I miss those gals in Maine. I miss singing with them. I miss being part of something that meant something to all of us. As the song goes, "I miss that old gang of mine." Sung in four part harmony, of course.